Google Fast Flip news website launched

Google's new Fast Flip news service aims to improve the way people read articles online and encourage 'serendipitous browsing'

By Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor

12:01AM BST 15 Sep 2009

The new-look news website, dubbedGoogle Fast Flip, will pull in content from more than 40 publishers and aims to make reading articles online a more "engaging" experience, saidGoogle.

Revenue generated from the adverts served alongside the article will be split between Google and the relevant publisher, with content providers taking the "majority" of the revenue, according to a Google spokesman.

Josh Cohen, a business product manager at Google, said that Fast Flip, which will be available as a test service from the Google Labs section of the search giant's website, will aggregate content from dozens of US websites, newspapers and magazines that have opted in to the service, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Newsweek.

Users can either browse through articles based on the most recent, most viewed or most recommended stories, or search for articles by topic or keyword. Clicking on an article takes the user directly through to that publisher's website. Fast Flip will also be available on Apple's iPhone and handsets running the Google Android operating system, enabling users to continue reading features, opinion pieces and news stories while on the move.

Cohen said the purpose of the service was to improve the way people read articles online, making the experience more akin to flicking through a publication and coming across a story that you might like to read. He said Fast Flip would encourage "serendipitous browsing", and would also have an important social element, allowing users to recommend articles to friends.

Crucially for publishers, the ad-revenue sharing scheme might also provide content creators with a way of making money from Google News. The relationship between Google and newspapers has at times proved fractious, with Robert Thompson, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, branding news aggregators such as Google "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet".

"There is a collective consciousness among content creators that they are bearing the costs and that others are reaping some of the revenues," he said in a recent interview. "Google argues they drive traffic to sites, but the whole Google sensibility is inimical to traditional brand loyalty. Google encourages promiscuity – and shamelessly so – and therefore a significant proportion of their users don't necessarily associate that content with the creator."

Google, for its part, is already developing technology that would help newspapers to make money from website readers by using micropayments to charge for specific online content. The company's admission comes just a month after News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch said that he hoped all of his major newspapers would be charging for online content by the end of June next year.

Cohen said that Fast Flip was one of many different experiments Google was working on with publishers to establish how to grow the online audience, engage readers more deeply, and make more money for all parties.

"We don't create content, we're not editors or journalists, we're a technology company," he said. "If we can [use that to] create better experiences online, then that's beneficial to Google."

Google said that although Fast Flip would initially focus on US audiences, it hoped to extend the service to other publishers in the coming months. BBC News is the only UK media outlet to have a presence on the site, due in part to its significant popularity in the United States.